Sport through the lens

Wednesday, 7th of November 2007, was historic day for Union Olimpija (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and also their home hall, Tivoli Arena. This Wednesday evening, Olimpija was playing against one of best European basketball teams, CSKA Moscow. And before match, they retired jersey with number 13.Number 13 was number which Slovene basketball legend, Ivo Daneu was carrying through his successful career. People were already euphoric about this game, few days before start of match itself. After winning week ago against Olympiacos, Greece, people started to wonder how far can Olimpija reach. Personally, I didn’t even think about winning against CSKA, even though euphoria before match against CSKA was high. But winning against CSKA? Winning against one of best, if not best European team? Nah mission impossible. Well on the end, Olimpija actually did something impossible, and won the game.

Marko Milic of Union Olimpija (R) and Matjaz Smodis of CSKA Moscow (L)

For me, match started few hours before, when I went to acupuncture, which hopefully will finally fix my screwed up back and neck. From Radovljica I drove back to Kranj, picked friend, who is photographer for Vecer, and we went to Ljubljana. As soon as we came to parking lot in front of Tivoli Arena, we knew it ’s going to be crazy. Tivoli Arena was completely sold out, and they even added some extra chairs. So our working conditions were “great”. Even though I understand perfectly fine adding extra chairs to earn extra money, I still think they should understand, we are there not for our fun, but to do our job. And because of that, they should also consider photographers and tv cameras, as well as players and spectators. I understand perfectly fine, sold out arena makes it harder to fulfill everyones wishes, but still. After first few confused looks like “wtf… and where, except out of hall, can we be?”, about 5 of us squeezed on corner of field between 2 chairs, so noone had blocked view because of us, except for Dragon Ladies who had to find different way to field during breaks and timeouts :)

Dragon Ladies had to bear with us

Another 3 photographers were sitting in front of first raw almost on field, listening one or two upset spectators, who paid 50eur for ticket, and now all of a sudden they weren’t in first row anymore. Their view wasn’t blocked by photographers doing their job in front of them, but it didn’t matter. It was more of an issue, that they paid for first row, and they are now not completely visible on tv screen in their first row. Go figure. I believe we all would, well I personally certainly would, love to move somewhere, where we wouldn’t cause problems to anyone, but they should give us such space.

Trajan Langdon of CSKA Moscow (R) vs. Hasan Rizvic of Union Olimpija (L)

So after first few minutes, when we were all in quite bad mood, everything went fine. I got photos I need way before half time, and because I was too lazy to walk across the field, I just waited for second half when they switched sides, to get photos of CSKA attacking and not just defending.

We do have nice work, right? :)

In between, I was trying to shoot basketball a bit different way. And I appreciate your comments if I succeeded or not :)

Players of Union Olimpija and CSKA Moscow during match of 3nd round of Basketball Euroleague

Few minutes before end of match, when Olimpija was still losing with 2 or 3 points, we started to pack and get going. Since noone of us needed jube shot, this was easy way to avoid all the crowd, even though we missed last second of match and victory of Olimpija. Short chat with Mira, really great Union Olimpija sales person who is always great help for us, infront of arena, almost made us be too late for easy escape from completely full parking lot. But we made it :)

More photos from Union Olimpija vs. CSKA match are on PhotoSI.